This course is a very practical survey on the legal and ethical principles applied by rank and file journalists in their daily reporting and editing activities. Upon successful course completion students will be able to:
1) Work as a journalist without getting themselves or their employer sued.
2) Obtain more information and perform more efficiently as a reporter as a result of an increased understanding of current laws, particularly those related to open meetings and open records.
3) Reflect more profoundly on the actions of the mass media than someone without ethical training (i.e. yourself before the course). This will involve actually thinking about what the media are really doing, why they might be doing those things and tracking the implications of it. Many people, particularly busy reporters, don't dissect the performance of the media in this way because they are on "auto-pilot," merely acting out (in the case of journalists) or accepting (in the case of audiences) the perceived role of the media.
3 Credits